Tour songs

If I could explain what 3:53am is like nearly 5 of 8 weeks into a nationwide tour, this would be the most interesting blog in the world.  But it's not that easy.

I'm plugging away at a phone with a backlit keyboard, and it seems like each time I know where to start, the screen times out and it's lost with these little light up buttons.

It's so strange.  The smile you give when you first meet a new face is so genuine.  The introductions vary, but they're the most rewarding encounters.  But giving that, and only those brief glimpses of yourself, is so exaughsting.  Some folks you meet for an hour, you share the most pressing details of your life, and you lose track before you can say good night.  Others you get to know all day, and you share just enough for a wave goodbye.

It's a weird way to travel.

Back home you make fleeting connections, a word or two, "oh, i got your text" is about all you hear, even though you talked daily before leaving.  Some folks check in constantly, and you hadn't talked in months, or years, before departure.  There's no hard feelings of course, it's tough after a few days slip by.

So here's a story about a fox.  Condenced a little, as i'm fading out as quick as my inspiration to write fades in.

A little fox was born in a traincar, eyes closed to the world for the first weeks of life.  In the first days, there wasn't much more to his world than the rumble of the tracks, and the occasional shrill sound of steel, iron, and all the other metals that turn the gears of transit.

When we are born, or adapt, into a situation, whether it be hectic or passive, it becomes the standard of our state.  This fox didn't have much but a few consistent sounds beneath his paws, and shaking his whiskers.  That is until the train rolled into town.

Coming to a halt outside of the Silver Dollar Bar, established in the early part of the century when trains were the network that kept the towns alive.  Train time is consistent in every city, before that noon and midnight were subjective.  The fox couldn't see, but the sounds he heard gave meaning to existance.  There was something more than grinding gears.

The town knew those train lights meant everything would be alright.

He wasn't sure how long or far he had traveled when his eyes came to open, but they did passing a town where two rivers collide, but all industry had died.  The train didn't stop there.

When it did, with whiskers sensing and paws warm to the ground below, the fox began his life away from the boxcar where he was born.  But the grapes were sour and the fruit seemed to be peeled and cored before he could find even skin to taste.  There was enough to get by, but it didn't seem enough.

And he never did find the fun in living in a hole.

Seasons lapsed, and the fox couldn't fnd a reason to stay put, so he ran.  He ran to the tracks, but no train would stop.  So he ran along the familiar heat until he (as a sly fox would) jumped into a crate that was set to be shipped, not too far from where he began to run.  As sly of a fox as he is, he couldn't quite read.  He had no idea where he'd be off to, but he sat and waited to be shipped, in a crate that read "Silver Dollar Bar".

As the station neared, the fox's ears perked up.  He knew the voices, the light that hit his unopened eyes, and each sound was the same. Who knew you can recall something you never had a chance to remember.  Or was it never a chance to forget?

When the train slowed, he slipped between the cracks to find every sight that could match the sounds.  With imagination to explore and skeptisism to understand, he found a town where each grape was sweet, the grass was so soft to the paw, and all the fruit was whole.

And living in a hole wasn't half as bad as it sounded.

The fox knew this place so well, even though each step was a new sight.  Or so he thought... it seems that the sly little fox didn't know he was on a shorter journey than he'd known.  Those cars he called home were only local service between ends of town, he'd ran so far, and rode so long, only to find himself at the other end of the yard.

Perhaps the world doesn't always feel whole... but finding the heart to explore the world around us, when it feels so stagnant, can bring the fruit of our eyes, ears, hearts, paws, and whiskers to fruition.

Stay well,

Phil